Bank Of America Violated Whistleblower Provisions, Dept. Of Labor Says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp must reinstate a Countrywide whistle-blower fired shortly after the two companies merged in 2008 and pay the employee $930,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

The employee, whose name was not given, led internal investigations that found widespread fraud involving Countrywide employees. Reporting fraud to Countrywide's Employee Relations Department led to retaliation, the employee told the Labor Department.

``It's clear from our investigation that Bank of America used illegal retaliatory tactics against this employee,''Occupational Safety and Health Administration Assistant Secretary David Michaels said in a statement.

Bank of America disagreed. ``We are disappointed with the ruling and plan to exercise our option to challenge the order,'' spokeswoman Shirley Norton said by email.

``The bank's actions to dismiss were solely based on issues with the employee's management style and in no way related to the employee's complaints and the allegations made in the complaint,'' she said.

Bank of America has had a rash of problems related to its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp, a major subprime lender accused of churning out loans to high-risk borrowers with little effort to check their incomes or ability to repay.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank paid $2.5 billion to buy Countrywide, but writedowns and legal costs have pushed the estimated cost of that purchase to more than $30 billion.

The $930,000 payment to the dismissed employee includes back wages, compensatory damages and attorney fees, the Labor Department said. (Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Andre Grenon and Tim Dobbyn)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Woodardone]

01:54 PM on 09/23/2011

The financial devastation brought on by the mortgage theft and fraud it self should be seen as a Nation Security Issue, and the perpetrators of this fraud should be seen as home grown Terrorist starting from the over paid Bankers down to the Lying Brokers and Appraisers .

I had nearly a million dollars in equity and GMAC foreclosed on me and evicted my family from our home of 28 years and yet we bailed them out with over a Fifty Billion Dollars Tax payer loan

Yes I also have a story.

[LibChik]

08:38 AM on 09/24/2011

I am sorry to hear your story, Wood. I have one too. It is truly amazing how much power we have allowed to slip away from the us as citizens only to hand it over to Big Business- of which Banking is King. We no longer live in a true Democracy.

[Woodardone]

02:43 PM on 09/25/2011

The blame should fall on three shoulders

1. Our leaders, elected officials and our law makers for not protecting the Constitution or the people

2. Us The people for not holding those we put in office at full accountability for the misuse of power that aloud such harmful deregulation's

3. The abusive Bankers, heartless lending institutions and the thieving real estate industry as a whole.

[artist-53]

06:47 PM on 09/21/2011

Question: What are resources does someone have when someone on this site physically threatens another individual.

Do I contact you, or the police? Or both.
As evidence by the following.

I Don't Go Around Follers Fool Dark Huffpost Super User Occult Human God Witch & I am The Green Hornet I Will Kick Your Butt Back Too Where You Came From With Your Ugly Lobbsided Butt & Now Take Lighting I Hear You Screaming Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah Had Enough Yet?

[psnyder325]

02:31 AM on 09/22/2011

I would do both, artist. Physical threats are NOT OK, ever!!

[LibChik]

08:39 AM on 09/24/2011

Hopefully you didn't put your address on your profile..... I would just ignore.

[artist-53]

09:26 AM on 09/24/2011

No address, and it's been reported to the cyber crime unit in my State. They could not understand why AOL hung up me, nor could they understand why HP/AOL has not responded to my repeated inquiries.And that the comment was still up. They thought it was improper and weird that no one has responded to my concerns. So that too is in the report as well.Failure to respond to a threat on their site.

[Republican No More]

12:03 PM on 09/16/2011

Rules and laws are for people, not banks. Government is so silly sometimes.

How many times will history have to repeat itself. They really don't believe the rules apply to them!
This has been going on for centuries...

[LibChik]

08:36 AM on 09/24/2011

In the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, the Supreme Court recognized that corporations were recognized as persons for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.[1][2]

cite: Wikipedia

[Republican No More]

08:47 AM on 09/24/2011

I realize that, just my stupid sarcasm... shouldn't be true...corporations have superhuman powers.. they can create and disband, can't be sanctioned in the same way as persons under our law... they lobby but a person it would be bribery... the premise is faulty... and gave us Citizens United and I fear a President Romney for that reason...

[fireincarmation]

10:42 PM on 09/15/2011

More data needed. How did Bof A punish the employee?

[LibChik]

08:37 AM on 09/24/2011

They fired him.

[knewsreply]

06:44 PM on 09/15/2011

A company and its officers make many mistakes against their employees and customers when they think they are "too big to fail."

[emanafunk]

04:09 PM on 09/15/2011

Banks are people/corporations?

[albant]

03:08 PM on 09/15/2011

Banksters on the rampage.

What can you expect in a bakcorpocracy?

People are no more thas payrolled slaves so this high tech pheudalism can function.

Ask Obama and his right wing bosses.!

[rMatey]

02:29 PM on 09/15/2011

thats why the GOP wants to take all of the power away from the Dept. of Labor. Can't be causing problems for their masters.

[floodberg]

01:50 PM on 09/15/2011

A question for the USSC: 

At what point does a corporation organized for a legal purpose become a 'criminal enterprise'? 

Handing out mortgages they knew to be fraudulent?  Knowingly attesting to the legal validity of robomortgages on foreclosure documents on court filings (that's called perjury)? Actually executing on those mortgages knowing they were falsely obtained (ditto)?  Firing whistleblowers?


If a corporation is a fictional person with freedom of speech, send the actors and their bosses to jail.  Let's send those folks who robosigned, and who authorized robosigning and defective mortgages, and who signed the court documents (lawyers, that's you!) to real jail times.  CEO/CFO/officers who had the duty to ascertain whether it was being done properly and permitted such things to continue didn't do 'due diligence' and should be allowed to enjoy those big bonuses and golden parachutes in Club Feds. 

Dept. of Justice ain't doin' nothin;  let 'em practice on BoA executives.

[giwel7]

12:07 PM on 09/15/2011

bank of america settles cases with billlions and millions with state and federal agencies with no admission of guilt. could it be this employee could not be bought and sold before a trial?

[Barbarian At The Gate]

11:58 AM on 09/15/2011

When will wikileaks release BoA docs?

[floodberg]

01:31 PM on 09/15/2011

Dunno, I've been dying to read that selection too!

[des946]

11:00 AM on 09/15/2011

When is Congress and the SEC going to push for legislatin and regualtions to break up these "too-big-to-fail" financial instituions? Congress hasn't done a darn thing to achieve this is the last three years, ahve they?

[jgrz87]

02:22 PM on 09/15/2011

BOA bought congress a long time ago

[floodberg]

03:54 PM on 09/15/2011

Rather ironic:  They're #1 in bank offshoring, and top grade tax avoiders; and they spread the wealth across Congress and the White House so they're protected.

[des946]

10:57 AM on 09/15/2011

So what? The costs of any fines are merely passed on to the stock holders and the customers of the bank . . . and they layoff 30K to 40K emplyees to help absorb the costs of these fines and/or judgements. The CEO and other upper management people STILL get their exorbitant salaries, benefits, and record bonuses, right? So, where is the deterrent against any similar actions in the future. We have become a society where there is no "personal responsibility" held against managment for almost anything that they do . . . not even against blatantly orchestrated fraudlent criminal acts committed by them. Without accountability and punishment of malfeasance and misfeasance, then there is absolutely no deterrence for futre repetition of such acts. We seem to be living in an age of a modern version of medievial times of kings and lords . . . the new oligarchic elitie are the ultra wealthy, the CEOs and uppermanagment of these financial institutions, hedge fund owner/managers, etc. These elitists are the new "untouchables" and they are virtually guaranteed their wealthy incomes regadless of their poor or criminal performances.

[floodberg]

03:55 PM on 09/15/2011

In the old Enron days, they'd fine execs personally and send them to jail.  Now they have unlimited freedom of speech and no jail.

[annadams]

10:18 AM on 09/15/2011

The State of North Dakota was the only state that kept its small banks and stayed away from the big bank mergers. One main bank in Fargo knew the derivitive game was going on but refused to get involved. Results: North Dakota's unemployment is the lowest in the country. It's somewhere between 3 to 4.5%.

[jobriendj]

10:40 AM on 09/15/2011

that and nobody without a job would ever hang around for long

[Stan Olshefski]

11:03 AM on 09/15/2011

North Dakota's employment situation has not to do with banks, and everything to do with energy exploration -- primarily natural gas fracking and oil sands.

[cats530]

11:42 AM on 09/15/2011

Oooh, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip.

[floodberg]

01:37 PM on 09/15/2011

Stan Olshefski, I own land in NoDak (a family homestead farm); we bank locally and the local bankers live in our communities, so taking stupid risks is not a good idea.  Yes, energy exploration and farming has kept us alive, but...

Avoiding derivatives made the real difference in employment; our people still have jobs because company money wasn't tossed into derivatives, our state avoided it as well so we don't have major budget issues, and our banks have money to lend instate.

[WBLM]

10:15 AM on 09/15/2011

The Bank Of America would use illegal retaliatory tactics? Tell me it isn't so?

[turkpol]

10:49 AM on 09/15/2011

Unbelievable, huh? The Talian of banking strikes again.

[cats530]

11:43 AM on 09/15/2011

Fanned for B of A being the "Taleeban" of banking. Its SO true! Guess the mods don't like the correct spelling of the "T-ban" word, do they? It never goes through if I spell correctly.